Chapter 28 – The heroine and the soldiers
Buffy was one of half a dozen civilians who had been, for various reasons, allowed to travel with hundreds of military people on the first flight to California. She was not in a position to refuse, even if she had wanted to; and on the whole, she did not want to. She wanted to be back in California. However dark and dubious the future might have started seeming to her fifteen-year-old mind, she would rather face it in her own home state and with her mother near her.
Still, an airplane full of adult people in uniform was not her ideal way to travel. Buffy knew that her super-powers had been growing in the last few months; not only her strength and speed and endurance, but also her senses – including that mystical sixth sense that allowed her to perceive vampires. Now, for the first time, she experienced these senses as a burden. Yes, she had already noticed that the noises of the airplanes and cars in which she travelled had been growing louder and clearer, that smells and colours had grown somehow stronger and brighter. But it had never before reached the level of a nuisance. Even the day in New York City, at least before the battle, had been enjoyable: loud, chaotic and garish, yes, but fun all the same.
It was not till she came to the airport and prepared to take her place on the huge aircraft, that she realized for the first time that superhuman senses could be a distinct nuisance, above and beyond hearing conversations you did not want. The airplane stank of plastic, lubricant oil, dust and burning fuel. The air, circulating through ducts, felt close and stuffy. And everywhere, everywhere, there was the sound of humans – heartbeats and breathing and odd noises from the stomachs and other parts, shuffling feet and the sound of rubbing cloth. And talk, above all. Everyone seemed to be talking, mostly quite softly, but she could not help but focus on the voices. Talk attracts attention; that is its nature. Dozens of voices, over and over again, each separately calling for her attention. People were debating distant friend, or singing, or reading books of regulations aloud to each other, perhaps in an attempt to memorize them: having what sounded like heated discussions about professional sports; and, in one occasion, telling – and sniggering at – a joke so blue, it almost made her feel sick. At fifteen, Buffy, like her Hemery High contemporaries, had thought herself sophisticated and mature, discussing sex in what they thought an open and uninhibited way, and using the word "virgin" as an insult. But as the airplane began to climb, she was catching more and more conversations that she wished she could turn off, especially for their matter-of-fact yet sniggering tone. She tried to force her attention away, but it was as if her attention had a mind of its own. One conversation, in particular, between two soldiers who had shared the favours of a woman with masochistic tastes, made her feel at first revolted, and then so angry that…. She heard a cracking noise, and looked down at her right hand. In her rage and disgust, she had gripped her seat's arm rest so hard, she had nearly broken it.
Suddenly afraid of discovery, she jolted her hand away and looked up. Thankfully, nobody seemed to have heard the noise, though a few people did seem to spot her sudden motion, and briefly turned to look at her. But it was no more than the passing glances she had been getting all evening. Even before she boarded the plane, she heard a nasty-looking NCO inform a group of soldiers that she was, one, jailbait, and, two, the daughter of a three-star general, so any attempt at "fraternization" was going to end up badly. At first this had left her somewhat concerned, but as they boarded – and the plane got ready – and the engines started – and they took off – and time passed – and the flight went on – and nobody bothered her… she relaxed. Although there was a small part of her that was a bit annoyed that it took so little for dozens of young men, most of them hot, to start ignoring her blonde hair, neat figure and fine legs.
Her mind went back to the present. Conversations wove themselves and went past each other, flickering into her ears. Someone had failed a pregnancy test; her friends of both sexes congratulated her, in a small burst of relieved noise that drew Buffy's attention. Someone was reading aloud the instructions for driving a Hulk-busting machine, which made Buffy wonder whether she was supposed to hear it. Two or three people were discussing favouritism and awards in the Air Force. A group of sailors, stranded as she was among the crowd of soldiers and airmen, discussed postings, distant harbours, foreign countries… and the qualities of the local girls. A solitary Marine flickered in and out of her consciousness; he seemed to be spending his time enduring a stream of jokes at the expense of his intelligence – a quality, the jokes implied, not typical of jarheads. Buffy's attention was drawn away, to a man who was talking about his children and his divorce case: he sounded bitter. But then her attention was drawn back to the Marine. She realized what had happened. All the mockers had fallen silent.
"…that was Latin, but Latin is easy," the Marine was saying. "I would offer you some Greek, but I'm afraid you would not even know whether I'm having you on."
It seemed that the man, crewcut and all, had hidden depths. He probably had got tired of the continuous (and boring) mockery. And he did seem to have silenced several rows of seats. Someone, three rows behind and across, appealed to the woman who had had the pregnancy test. "I only know some Latin," she answered. The Marine started saying something, but he was suddenly drowned out by a burst of laughter from somewhere between him and Buffy. Somewhere between him and Buffy, half a dozen people seemed to have burst into laughter at the same time, and as Buffy's attention focused, she realized that everyone who was laughing was also pointing at a bewildered young man with reddish curls and freckles. The young man, an Army private with a definite greenhorn feel, kept trying to make out what it was that he was saying wrong, and raising further and further gales of laughter. Finally, the woman who spoke Latin (and who, Buffy now noticed, wore a Captain's epaulettes) took pity on him, shushed everyone else, and sat down by him. "Latin is the name of the language of ancient Rome. It's nothing to do with Latinos. Latinos are called Latinos because their languages are derived from Latin, but they have nothing to do with the Latin language."
The young soldier blushed to the root of his hair, and so, unnoticed, did Buffy. She did not think that she had ever heard of Latin-the-language either, and if the young soldier had not asked the question that had made everyone laugh, she might have.
Buffy noticed that one of the Marine's neighbours had been walking up the aisle. From the corner of her eye, she saw him talk to another man and bring him back. The second man was a Navy officer – Buffy could not tell which rank - with rugged, deeply lined features, olive skin, and a beaky nose. The seaman went up to the Marine and spoke to him.
(Buffy's attention was partially distracted. Something at the other end of the plane was attracting it.)
The Marine looked slightly bewildered. He answered back in a tentative way.
(The change in expression drew Buffy's attention back to the Marine and the seaman. But at the back of her mind there remained that something at the other end.)
The seaman answered back, speaking slowly. The Marine repeated his words, then added a sentence or two. The seaman smiled.
(Buffy waited for everyone's attention to be focused on the two. She got up and sidled quietly out of her seat and down the aisle.)
The seaman looked up and said: "He does speak very good Greek, but he speaks it like a college boy. We Greeks pronounce the words differently."
It was as if a bottle had been opened. People loosened up, laughed, started to speak. And in that air of sudden relaxation, anyone who might have been following Buffy's movements for any reason would have been distracted. She moved like a shadow in the half-lit aisle, her heels somehow making no noise, going unnoticed by rows of tired men, some talking, some reading, some half asleep, some softly snoring. And as her perceptions grew clearer, she realized, with no surprise, that what was drawing her was sitting in the last row, practically impossible to see by anyone before him. But she could feel him before she saw him.
"Slayer."
"Yes"
The vampire did not get up; and, within a second, he was made unable to. As Buffy sat next to him with an elegant motion, her left hand reached to him and caught his right wrist in a grip of iron. He could not now get away from her, unless he ripped his own forearm to pieces in the process. Vampires are strong, but slayers are even stronger.
"Not a good idea, Slayer. If you start a fight, we will rip the plane apart. And you and all these bloodbags won't survive the fall, but I will."
"What makes you think you would? There would be fire, and flying debris, and the shock of impact…"
"Oh, just that I've done it before."
"Well, what a smart boy you are… giving me one more reason not to let you go till we land. And to kill you then."
The vampire hoped that she had not felt his instinctive shudder. Fear of her kind was inborn in vampires, just as hate was. He took refuge in bluster.
"You'll try, my child. They say that slayer blood is especially tasty… Spike told me, and he should know."
Buffy did not answer. The steely grip on the vampire's wrist did not relax, but her attention had turned again to the mass of people before them. The talk was still clamorous and confusing; but as the flight went on, she kept spotting expressions, ideas, patterns, statement of fact. Most of the soldiers on board were veterans from the dissolved Hulk-buster units, now being urgently reassembled; many conversations she could hear, or guess at, had to do with their experiences of the green monster. For a couple of minutes, her attention was distracted by a civilian's hilarious account of the exploits of his cheerleader niece, that was convulsing a few of the front rows with laughter. Buffy found herself sniggering somewhat ruefully, suspecting that the little airhead might have more in common with her than she'd have liked. Then her attention shifted to a clutch of senior officers who were discussing the impact of the New York and Las Vegas disasters on the dollar and on the markets. Buffy had the impression that they were worried about their savings and future pensions, but the subject bewildered and bored her, she gave it up. Four or five people were discussing Korean cuisine. But her attention kept sliding back to the many conversations about the Hulk-buster units.
Buffy didn't like what she heard or guessed. A certain tone of unwillingness, of lack of hope, and of creeping anger, kept turning up, making the occasional confident or cheerful voice sound more like puffery. The Hulk, it seemed, had made fools of them more than once. Many of them seemed to feel a sense of futility, if not of fear.
This, at first, puzzled Buffy. She had, indeed, seen the monster in action, very briefly, but enough to know she would not llike to have to face him as an enemy. But she thought he was on their side now? He had helped save New York City, and the news programs…
…those guys were speaking about "Carter". And they were senior officers, colonels and brigadiers. Was that Father they meant?...
…Wait. What? What? They can't mean…
Oh my God. Other monsters. There are other gamma monsters. There other monsters as strong as the Hulk… no wonder those soldiers felt discouraged. And according to TV news, there also were at least seventy other evil super-beings in flight from the jailbreak.
…..
"You are what?"
"I am the Sandman, sheriff. I'm one a' the super-guys what got loose in the jailbreak. I wanna turn mesel' in."
"Uh… sure… Sit down over there, while I call SHIELD up."
[whispered] "Sheriff, what are you doing? This guy is…"
[whispered] "Yes, he's dangerous. He's so dangerous that if he wanted to kill us, we could do nothing about it. So if he wants to give himself up, we'll take him at his word, wait for the specialists, and pray that he means what he says."
….
"Are you sure of this, Thinker? I'm not keen to go back to the hoosegow. And it was you who said you were spending all your time working out ways to escape."
"I know, Constrictor," and the usually chilly and ironic voice vibrated with fear. "But things have changed. I cannot even compute how 73 of us can have been set free at the same time, without a trace, from four different super-prisons. Whoever did that was above our level. Way above. And if they can do this, they can do worse. I propose stay out of the way, observe, and wait."
"If you say so," said the Constrictor. "I don't want to be caught up in another super-war either. But I don't trust these guys." The Armadillo, third member of the small group of runaways, just nodded his massive head. Though caught in the actual jailbreak, he had never actually wished to escape, and the idea of peacefully surrendering suited him just fine. They raised their hands and started walking towards the small group of state troopers.
And then the two rods of a shotgun roared. The Mad Thinker's head literally exploded, spattering his companions with fragments of bones and droplets of brains and blood. For a moment, the Armadillo was simply unable to taek in what had just happened. The quicker-witted Constrictor screamed: "He was giving up, you morons! He wasn't going anywhere!" His metal whips flashed out, but another shotgun blast caught him in the stomach, and he collapsed, the whips twitching as they fell without connecting. A third blast caught the lumbering Armadillo in the face.
"Jezuz, Hank… Are you sure we had to?"
"Look, Ryan, that was the Mad Thinker. Sneaky doesn't even begin to escribe him. Whatever he was meaning to do, we'd never have seen it comin'. He was just playing with us."
"I agree. Hank is right, you can't trust these animals."
And then a noise startled the four troopers. They looked up, and they saw that the Armadillo was rising from the ground. Dozens of shotgun pellets were embedded in his face, and twisted already monstrous, armoured features into a frightful, shattered grimace. But while the fragments of ammunition had penetrated his hide, they had neither damaged his eyes nor struck any vitals. They had done nothing but send him into the most murderous rage of his life.
The troopers tried to run; one by one, he brought them down. Clumsy as he looked, he could move with terrible speed once he had got into his swing. One trooper was struck down by a blow of his forearm, crashing like a club, shattering his shoulder, his cervical vertebrae, and one side of his jaw. The second was hit by a side-sweep that smashed him against a wall, killing him instantly. The third felt an obscene pain in his midriff and looked down instinctively; he had the time to see the Armadillo's bloodied claws poking through his stomach, before his eyes closed and he fell.
The Armadillo had left Chris, the trooper who had convinced the others and who had shot first, for last. That was deliberate. He seized him with both hands and lifted him like a rag doll. He turned back, ripped a road sign from the ground with his right hand, and then he slammed the gasping trooper into the same wall that had already killed his colleague and was filthy with his blood.
"He was going to do nothing," he growled. "We were all going to do nothing. We were going to surrender. We wanted to be left in peace, that was all."
The Armadillo lifted his victim with his left hand, effortlessly, grinding his back against the rough bricks. Then his right arm swung, and the trooper exploded into a hideous scream that was heard for miles. He had been pinned to the wall by the road sign, whose pole went straight through his abdomen, and now his whole weight was resting, through the rib cage, on the metal rod.
"If they find you still alive," snarled a face like the rage of Hell, "tell them what you've done. Tell them that from now on, it's war. I won't trust any of you ever again. I will kill you wherever I find you. And I will tell all the others what you have done and what treacherous bastards you are."
…..
Buffy, on her airplane, was unaware of these events, any more than any of the other thousands, the other millions, of people who were soon to be caught up in them. But she was beginning to feel that she knew nough. She had been distracted again by gossip about her father – yes, it was he whom they meant by "Carter," and he was making some sort of investigation that somehow involved the Hulk), but her attention had gone back to the ugly stuff soon enough. Yes, there were other gamma monsters. Yes, they were the enemy that the reactivated Hulk-busters were meant to fight. And while some soldiers felt that their best hope was that the Hulk and the other "Avengers" were on their side now, others still never wanted to see him ever again.
Buffy had indeed heard enough. It was not in her nature to act so cold-bloodedly; yet, now, while the vampire on her left was distracted, she suddenly slashed with her right arm and drove a wooden pencil into him.
The vampire was caught wholly by surprise. But the pencil was a tiny thing, and did hardly more than nick his heart. It took him more than a minute to crumble into dust and die; and while his voice was the first thing to go, all the while his eyes were staring at her with bitter, impotent hatred. And still nobody noticed.
"I had to," she whispered as the death-agony started. "I could not let you out of this plane alive. Whoever you are, you are a master vampire. Every day, every hour, you were alive, someone else would be dying. And I couldn't let you do that."
